kawuli:

batboyblog:

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #37

Oct 4-11 2024

  1. President Biden announced a new EPA rule that will require all lead pipes in America’s drinking water systems to be replace with-in 10 years. This builds on the $15 billion the Biden-Harris Administration has already invested in replacing lead pipes nation wide. The administration’s focus on this issue has allowed local governments to greatly execrate their lead pipe replacement plans, before Biden took office the city of Milwaukee’s timeline for replacing its lead pipes was 60 years, they’re now on track to do it in 10. The EPA says there’s no safe level of lead in the human body.
  2. Vice President Harris announced she plans to expand Medicare to cover home health care. Currently those who need long term care, are covered by Medicaid, the health program for the poor so have to spend all their savings before they can qualify. This change would allow more seniors to stay in their homes and offer support to caregiving family members. Medicare also covers the disabled thus proving a game changer for the disabled Americans and their families. The Vice President also endorsed expanding Medicare to cover the costs of hearing and vision care.
  3. Medicare released a preliminary list of 101 generic drugs which it would cover that would cost no more than $2 for a month for enrollees. People have long lobbied to allow Medicare to pay for generic drugs which has been resisted by drug companies. Thanks to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, and in line with a Biden Executive Order Medicare is now working on bring low cost generic drugs to seniors. The list targets some of the most common prescriptions thus will bring savings to the most people.
  4. Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden announced that the Biden-Harris Administration had blown past its goal of hiring 250,000 student support staff for 2024. The joint effort by the Department of Education, AmeriCorps and Everyone Graduates Center managed to hire 320,000 tutors, mentors, student success coaches, postsecondary transition coaches, and student support coordinators nationwide, its goal for the end of 2025.
  5. The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced $420 million to help get rid of lead paint and other lead hazards from homes. HUD estimates that over 3 million households that have children under the age of 6 live with lead hazards. HUDs grants will go to all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico with particular focus on low income housing.

oh shit, the Medicare thing is huge

silver-flame-alchemist:

mtomauw:

itsforexposure:

ok let’s not pretend we didn’t get these offers before AI became a problem. Someone once asked me to illustrate a whole children’s book for 50 euros.

People in general have no fucking clue how much work it takes to illustrate anything.

AI definitely makes it worse cuz now those idiots think they made something themselves when they go to the plagiarism machine.

The last person to ask about my writing commissions straight up BLOCKED ME when I told them my rates.

I got ghosted because I told someone my terms and turn around times.

cryptidswitch:

So I have a deep appreciation for late night host John Oliver and all he does, but I have an even greater love for one of his running gags. In several of his episodes he flashes up a joke alternative title card for his show and I have been collecting screenshots of these cards. Here is my collection.

clatterbane:

professionalreblogs:

emberstreak:

gotinterest:

tasmanianstripes:

dairyisntscary:

Inuits in the Arctic can survive perfectly on a plant based diet 😤

Vegans: We care about all life! We’re all equal!

Also vegans: I think Inuit people should starve 🙂

Animals in nature: *kill and eat each other all the time.*

vegans:

Commercial agriculture: *develops certain GMOs and pesticides that kill keystone bug species, which disrupts the environment and kills many different animals up the food chain as a result*

Vegans:

Commercial agriculture: *destroys local ecosystems by ripping out native species and replacing them with massive farms of exotic monocultures, resulting in the deaths and endangerment of millions of species*

Vegans:

Inuit people: *live in an environment where growing plant based food is extremely difficult, and where grocery prices are inflated past affordability so they hunt a few large animals every year which feed their entire community*

Vegans: that’s immoral and evil, actually.

@feathertayl​

MY PEOPLE! MY PEOPLE ARE ALREADY STARVING! We are NOT the reason animals are going extinct. We have kept the EXACT SAME HUNTING PRACTICES FOR CENTURIES! CENTURIES! Before cars we hunted this way, before light bulbs we hunted this way, BEFORE AMERICA OR AUSTRALIA WAS COLONIZED WE HAVE HUNTED THIS WAY!

Orange juice in my home town is 25$ minimum! We buy bread for special occasions! Something Southern people have on their dinner table 24/7 is something I would see only a few times a year!

Not to mention, we use AS MUCH OF THE ANIMAL AS POSSIBLE! Bones become plates, and silverware (or in some cases jewlery), fur and blubber becomes homes and clothing and beds. Teeth become combs. And we eat EVERYTHING! I’ve had brains, and eyeballs, and intestines. Anything that can be eaten, will be eaten. We DONT throw ANYTHING away. And if we have too much (which is rare but has happened before) we leave it for the suffering wild life!

Polar bears will come and gouge themselves on a whale we don’t finish, wolves will feast on some left over seal tails, foxes will devour caribou carcases!

Even now, we are curbing our hunting ideas. We DONT hunt as many whales as we used too, we used to hunt maybe five a year, but now we hunt one to three! Seals are also taken care of but use only hunting males, and older males at that! Caribou was my family’s main meal, and lemmings when they would come around.

If you are vegan, cool! More power too you! But you probably live in a place that can grow more than lichen, and grass. You live in an industrialized place, where everyone has a car, and house.

Some of my people still don’t own these things. We are so far north, cars are hard to maintain, electricity for my childhood home came from a car battery we would buy from the soldiers and sailors, we didn’t have wifi, or even phones.

(#sorry i had to go off #because my neice is that little girl #i was there for that picture)

lazyscience:

thoughtportal:

laexploradoraaa:

fromthemindofatwentyorotherlycan:

wayfaringmd:

dynamite5ftjewishbitch:

Fun, someone said the words “prior authorizations” around me and now I’m pissed off at 730am on my day off. I go off on this rant all the time. ALL THE TIME.

Oof. This man gets it.

Every time I have to send a fax to a doctor saying “hey this med needs a PA” I get violently angry.

Hint: if your PA gets denied call your insurance and ask for the credentials of the person who made that call. Usually they will approve it instead of admitting they hired some 18-year-old with no relevant training or experience to scan for buzz-words and just deny everything

If you get denied, appeal. It’s within your rights and if the appeal is overturned, you will be approved. It happens enough that it’s worth the effort. Sometimes it’s just a phone call.

propublica made this helpful tool: Find out why your health insurer denied your claim.

The guy in this TikTok is both an MD and a young cancer survivor who also survived a heart attack, so he knows ALLLLLLL about medical billing and insurance. which is why he virulently despises them. He has a lot of very approachable explainers about medical insurance and all the places it is skimming money off patients while also not paying doctors.